


The Third Option

by sunnivaixchel



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Wings, Birthday, Established Relationship, M/M, Stargazing, Trauma, honestly fluffier than anything I've written in a longass time, rated T for microscopic makeout scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 14:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20083978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunnivaixchel/pseuds/sunnivaixchel
Summary: It's been almost two years since Armageddidn't, and Adam is celebrating his 13th birthday. Aziraphale and Crowley arrive to visit with Adam and the Them. When kids are pestering you with questions, sometimes you end up talking about things that you've never told anyone. Sometimes, that's a good thing.





	The Third Option

**Author's Note:**

> I love Ineffable Husbands, the Them, and this fucking fandom.  
This is the first thing I've finished in literal years.  
The actual shipping is secondary to the rest of the story, just to let you know.

The lives of humans move very quickly. They’re born, within a couple of years they can walk, several years after that their bodies begin to mature, a few years after that they’re fully grown, and before you know it, they’re on their deathbed. Enjoying and loving humans without becoming too attached had become second nature to Aziraphale. There had been so many humans over the millennia that he’d known and loved and that he looked back fondly on. He’d gotten used to it.  
  
Trekking up the hill in the small forest midafternoon in Lower Tadfield with Crowley was one of those things he knew he’d look back fondly on, as were the cries of ‘they’re here!’ that came when they crested the hill.  
“Hello, where’s the birthday boy, then?” Aziraphale said cheerfully, several antique biscuit tins in his arms. He always filled them with the biscuits that had originally come in them, which the children loved.  
“You came!” Adam was smiling, and he was growing up to be such a handsome boy.  
  
“Of course we did. Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Crowley said, carrying two packs of sodas. It had been almost two years since the Notable Lack of an Apocalypse. Adam was turning thirteen today. In a few short days, Aziraphale and Crowley would be celebrating the second anniversary of their first, desperate kiss on that bus back to London. Time did move so quickly. Goodies were handed out, and the children got handfuls of the biscuits and then swarmed their two supernatural guests with questions.  
  
The children saw Crowley relatively frequently. He visited once or twice a month. Aziraphale only tagged along occasionally, and was the focus of a lot of their attention, as he hadn’t been as thoroughly interrogated yet.  
He tried to answer their questions, most of which were perplexing, insightful, invasive, endearing, or downright confounding, as they usually were. Crowley’s arm around his waist was like an anchor keeping him from being swept away in a sea of childish curiosity.  
  
“We know we’re not allowed to touch, because that would be bad, but can we see them? We’ve seen Crowley’s plenty,” Pepper’s questions always seemed to be the sharpest and most pointed, and her matter-of-fact manner added to this.  
  
“Yes, well, I suppose,” Aziraphale said hesitantly, taking a step away from Crowley, then extending his wings. Pepper, Brian, and Wensleydale looked at them with wide eyes before their expressions became distinctly underwhelmed.  
  
“Oh,” Pepper said.  
  
“What?” Aziraphale’s cheeks warmed self-consciously and his wings wilted a bit.  
  
“They’re just the same as Crowley’s, only white,” Brian scratched his side.  
  
“I told you,” Adam said in exasperation.  
  
“I thought they’d be...different. Shouldn’t angel wings glow or something?” Wensleydale asked.  
  
“No, this is...this is what angel wings look like,” Aziraphale was feeling extremely self-conscious now, hands starting to flutter nervously. Crowley’s arm hooked back around his waist and Aziraphale’s wing automatically curled around him.  
  
“Some angel wings glow, but not his. But his wings are perfectly fine. They’re beautiful. Right?” Crowley tipped his glasses down sternly at the children, giving them a peek at his serpentine eyes. There was an immediate chorus of ‘yes’ ‘right’ ‘of course’ ‘they’re great’, and Aziraphale couldn’t help but smile.  
  
“Mine aren’t particularly special. Some angels have spectacular wings. Mine are just the basic ones. I’m just a Principality,” Aziraphale told them, and then he had to explain what a Principality was.  
  
“So if Principalities guard over groups of people, who do you guard over?” Adam asked.  
“Well, it’s ‘guard’ in a general sense, we’re more patrons than anything. I’ve guarded various groups over the years. Now it’s mostly Queer people,” Aziraphale explained. Pepper perked up a little.  
  
“So you’re like the patron saint of LGBT+?” she asked, glad to be onto something she knew more about.  
  
“More or less,” Aziraphale put his wings away.  
  
“Is that because you two are gay?” Brian asked, and Pepper kicked him, “Ow!”  
  
“Well, ‘gay’ is a very human label...” Aziraphale hesitated.  
  
“Yeah, we’re gay,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale chuckled, leaning into his side.  
  
“Yes, I suppose we are,” he agreed. The conversation moved on and soon Crowley was regaling the children with wild, exaggerated stories of his exploits through the ages, which Aziraphale often had to gently correct when they became too ridiculous. The afternoon wore on into the evening and the sun began to set. Aziraphale noticed that the Them were rolling sleeping bags out.  
  
“Oh, camping out tonight?” he asked.  
  
“Yeah,” Adam said, “Since we’re all teenagers now, except Wensleydale-”  
  
“Hey! I’ll be thirteen in two months!”  
  
“-our parents said we could camp out here tonight since it’s my birthday,” Adam finished.  
  
“Well, it’s getting late. We should probably head home,” Aziraphale looked at Crowley, who was letting Brian inspect his nail polish. Crowley nodded.  
  
“Wait, Crowley, weren’t you going to stay one night and tell us about the stars and show us which ones you helped make?” Wensleydale asked suddenly. Aziraphale froze, cutting his eyes at Crowley, who had tensed slightly.  
“Yeah, you promised you would,” Pepper said, “I want to know what making nebulas is like.” Crowley didn’t move.  
  
“I did promise that, didn’t I?” he said slowly. He looked at Aziraphale, who said nothing, “Alright. We’ll go out to the field once it’s really dark, then. I’ll tell you about all the ones we can see from here,” Crowley said in a firmer voice, pulling his hand back from Brian. The children were all very pleased with this, grabbing their sleeping bags and running out to the field to spread them out, leaving Aziraphale and Crowley alone. There was silence, “I never told you about that, did I?” Crowley said softly.  
  
“What, that you have memories from before your Fall?” Aziraphale asked icily. Crowley grimaced.  
  
“It’s not exactly easy to talk about, angel. The stars part...that’s all fine. It won’t bother me to tell them about the nebulas I made. The rest...” Crowley looked up towards Adam’s ‘throne’, “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. Aziraphale’s shoulders sagged, “I understand if you’re angry.”  
  
“I’m not angry, Crowley, just...a bit hurt that you told these children about it before you told me,” Aziraphale said.  
  
“They ask so many questions and it...it just kind of came out while I was talking to them. I mean, you’ve never told me you were specifically the Principality of The Gays before,” Crowley smiled faintly. Aziraphale wrinkled his nose.  
  
“I haven’t?” he asked. Crowley shook his head, still smiling.  
  
“All sorts of things come out with this lot asking you a billion questions,” he said, and that made Aziraphale chuckle. His smile faded.  
  
“I wish you’d told me,” he said quietly. Crowley walked over and took Aziraphale’s face in his hands and kissed him oh so gently on the lips.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said, and it was impossible not to forgive him. They kissed a few more times, pulling apart as they heard the Them coming back. They obediently followed the children out into the field, sitting on a blanket Crowley magicked up as dusk turned into night. Then Crowley started talking about the stars that slowly became visible. It quickly became obvious to Aziraphale that Crowley had studied astronomy extensively, something he had only been somewhat aware of. Maybe he should offer Crowley some books on astronomy. That might interest him more than Aziraphale’s usual fare. Aziraphale sat cuddled up to Crowley’s side, head on his shoulder, listening to him talk passionately about the stars.  
  
It was in the middle of a slow, vague, metaphor-laced description of what creating a nebula was like when the question was posed.  
  
“So when exactly did you make them?” Pepper was propped up on her elbows.  
  
“During Creation. Y’know, creation of the universe and all,” Crowley said. He’d surprised Aziraphale by taking his glasses off. Aziraphale wondered if he frequently took his glasses off and bared his inhuman eyes to these children.  
  
“Demons helped create the universe?” Brian asked. Crowley tensed, and Aziraphale laced their fingers together, squeezing his hand.  
  
“I wasn’t always a demon. I was an angel once,” Crowley said quietly. Brian and Wensleydale seemed surprised by this. Pepper and Adam weren’t.  
  
“You were? You never told us that,” Wensleydale accused.  
  
“Demons are fallen angels, Wensleydale. You have to have been an angel to be a fallen angel,” Pepper said condescendingly. There was a pause.  
  
“Crowley doesn’t sound like an angel name. It sounds like a demon name,” Brian said.  
  
“That’s because it is. Crowley is my demon name,” Crowley said.  
  
“What was your angel name?” Adam asked.  
  
“Dunno. Don’t remember.”  
  
“What do you mean you don’t remember?” Pepper frowned.  
  
“When angels fall...they have their memories of being an angel taken away. It took me thousands of years to remember as much as I do, and I’m one of the lucky ones,” Crowley said.  
  
“Who takes your memories away?” Adam asked. Aziraphale fully expected Crowley to steer the conversation in another direction, but he surprised Aziraphale by responding.  
  
“God, I guess. She takes everything from you when She casts you out,” Crowley’s voice grew quiet and somber. Aziraphale rubbed his thumb over the back of Crowley’s hand.  
  
“Why’d you get kicked out? I mean, you must have done something, right? Do you remember?” Pepper asked, but her voice was a little softer.  
  
“...hung out with the wrong crowd, asked too many questions. Most demons wanted to fall, they rebelled against Heaven and wanted to become demons. I...I didn’t, really,” Crowley said. Aziraphale knew it probably wasn’t obvious to the children, but he could tell how hard it was for Crowley to talk about this.  
  
“So they kicked you out for asking questions? Was it because it was a corrupt system and you started questioning it?” Pepper asked seriously. Aziraphale was sure she was spending a lot of time around Anathema these days.  
  
“Yeah, basically,” Crowley said. There was a pause.  
  
“That’s rubbish,” Wensleydale said, and that startled a small laugh out of Crowley.  
  
“Yeah, it is a bit rubbish, isn’t it?” his voice sounded a bit brittle to Aziraphale’s ears.  
  
“They shouldn’t have made you be a demon if you didn’t want to be. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions,” Adam said, staring up at the sky. Crowley squeezed Aziraphale’s hand so tight that it would have been painful for a human.  
  
“Yeah, being part of an evil rebellion is one thing, but asking questions isn’t bad,” Brian said.  
  
“Asking questions is good. You should always ask questions. You should always question authority. If you don’t, then corrupt systems stay in power,” Pepper said, and yes, that was definitely Anathema’s influence, “You didn’t do anything wrong. You did the right thing.” Aziraphale cut his eyes at Crowley. Crowley was staring straight up at the night sky. His cheeks were damp and glistening. Aziraphale squeezed his hand lightly and pressed a kiss to his shoulder.  
  
“Well, this is Heaven we’re talking about. They don’t like people asking questions. They want mindless, unquestioning obedience. Hell doesn’t care, as long as you do as you’re told and don’t try to start anything,” he said in a remarkably steady voice, considering the tears on his face, “I guess they’re just trying to be as different from Heaven as possible. It doesn’t always work. Fallen angels are still angels, deep down.”  
  
“What’s it like to fall? Do you remember that part?” Adam asked. Crowley licked his lips with a serpent’s tongue. He hesitated. Aziraphale squeezed his hand again, trying to signal that he didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to.  
  
“It’s...like literally falling,” his voice was unsteady enough now that the children could probably hear it, “Falling out of the sky into a deep, dark, burning abyss. Landing in a pool of sulfur is painful, but then when you crawl out...well, let’s just say it gets worse after that. That’s really the only thing demons are supposed to remember clearly,” he said. He’d never actually told Aziraphale the specifics of falling. Aziraphale kind of doubted he ever would. There was silence for a few moments.  
  
“How’d you get your demon name, then? Did they just give you one when you got to Hell?” Brian finally asked.  
  
“Basically. Crowley wasn’t the original name they gave me. They called me Crawly when I got there,” Crowley said with disgust. There was another pause.  
  
“Oh, coz you’re a snake,” Wensleydale said suddenly. Had Crowley shown them his snake form or just told them about it?  
  
“What kind of name is Crawly? That’s just stupid,” Adam said with that sort of finality only he had.  
  
“It is,” Crowley said, voice suddenly fervent, “It’s the worst name! ‘Oh, he’s a serpent, he crawls on the ground, let’s call him Crawly’. It’s rubbish. No imagination at all,” Crowley said passionately. Aziraphale reached up and wiped the tears from Crowley’s cheeks with his sleeve before the children could notice them. They probably wouldn’t, considering how dark it was, “The others had good, demonic names like Hastur and Ligur and Dagon. I was just Crawly. It was humiliating. Crowley’s a much better name,” Crowley settled down a little bit, rant over. There was a comfortable silence between the group for a while as they looked up at the stars.  
  
“Aziraphale, is it true you two met in the garden of Eden or did Crowley make that up?” Adam asked, and Aziraphale laughed as Crowley spluttered.  
  
“What do you mean did I make that up? I don’t make things up!” he said indignantly.  
  
“Your stories are great, but I’m pretty sure you make some of them up,” Adam said matter-of-factly, and Aziraphale laughed harder as Crowley made indignant noises.  
  
“No, he’s telling the truth about that one. We met on top of the Eastern Gate. I was on guard there. He came up and talked to me,” Aziraphale sent his still indignant partner an adoring look that calmed Crowley a little bit.  
  
“What were Adam and Eve like?” Pepper asked.  
  
“Very sweet. Very sweet. Not exactly...bright, but a lovely pair, nonetheless,” Aziraphale said. Crowley snorted.  
  
“Yeah, not bright. Tempting them was the easiest thing in the world. Had to catch them in between breeding, which they were obsessed with, but that’s just a human thing,” he said. Aziraphale surreptitiously checked his watch, squinting at it in the dim light.  
  
“It’s getting rather late. We should probably head home,” he said. There were a few mild protests from the kids, but they were clearly getting a little tired and more than a little tired of stargazing. They all stood and Crowley got rid of the blanket with a flick of his wrist as the Them bunched up their sleeping bags and carried them back to their base. Aziraphale collected the now completely empty cookie tins and they said their goodbyes, Crowley promising to be back soon before they headed back towards the car. Aziraphale had their fingers laced together and there was silence between them, but not necessarily an uncomfortable silence. They got into the Bentley.  
  
“They’re exhausting, aren’t they?” Crowley finally said, and Aziraphale chuckled.  
  
“They are an inquisitive, rambunctious lot,” he admitted. He glanced over at Crowley, “They were right, you know,” Crowley raised his eyebrows, “You didn’t deserve to be cast out,” Crowley’s eyes widened and his pupils narrowed down to slits, mouth tightening. Aziraphale reached out and touched his cheek, “You didn’t. You never should have been made a demon. You’re not like the others,” he stroked Crowley’s cheek with his knuckles.  
  
“I know,” Crowley whispered, closing his eyes. He looked tired now.  
  
“But being an angel’s not all it’s cracked up to be either. Oh dear, if only there were a third option,” Aziraphale murmured. Crowley reached up and took Aziraphale’s hand.  
  
“There is,” he said, “That’s what we are. We’re the third option,” he squeezed the angel’s hand. Aziraphale felt his expression soften further.  
  
“Yes, I suppose we are,” he said, and they leaned in and kissed, gentle at first, but with growing passion as they tried to express what words could not. Soon they were grabbing at each other, mussing hair and rubbing tongues and biting lips. There was a knock on the window and they jerked apart. It was Adam. Crowley rolled down the window, wiping his mouth.  
  
“Yes?” he said, trying to sound casual and failing, clothes rumpled, hair a terrible mess.  
  
“You left these,” Adam held out Crowley’s glasses, face blank.  
  
“Yes, erm, thank you, Adam,” Crowley took the glasses, putting them into his coat.  
  
“Have a good night, Adam,” Aziraphale called around Crowley.  
  
“Yeah, you too,” Adam said, and they both saw him roll his eyes as he turned around, walking off. Crowley rolled up the window and they looked at each other. Aziraphale snorted and they both started laughing.  
  
“That poor boy,” Aziraphale laughed.  
  
“That’ll give him something to tell his friends about,” Crowley leaned back in his seat, chuckling.  
  
“Oh, I hope not. I don’t want them to think of us like that,” Aziraphale put his hands over his mouth to stifle the giggling.  
  
“Like what? Horny teenagers snogging in my car? Bet he got an eyeful.”  
  
“Poor Adam.”  
  
“Alright, let’s head back. Then we can snog like horny teenagers in the comfort of the bookshop,” Crowley turned the car on.  
  
“Oh yes, I should think so,” Aziraphale leaned in and pecked Crowley on the cheek. The car shot off down the country road and into the distance.  
  
The lives of humans moved quickly, but that wasn’t always a bad thing. It meant enjoying things while they lasted, and that was a lesson Aziraphale was learning every day.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
